Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1887-08-26
Big Dakota Farms.


ing operated along the Northern
Pacific and Manitoba railroads are
but infants when compared with those
i of California, but the climate and
soil of Dakota and. Manitoba are
SC. far superior for wheat growing to
those of California that I look at them
With peculiar interest. writes Frank
Wilkesopto the New York Times
from Casselton, Oak As I said,
there is no 2pretense of making a
pleasant home life. for the workmen
$Aelabor on these farms. There is
W eating with the farmers family,
{aS5 no, love making between hand
i, ,Et3ss ssSt,o harvest hands and the farmers
!: 81 daughter. No walks, no rides;
( - z1oo>Iight boat rowing no winding
'exNc-S, - romatic capers Of any sort.
ri t1o roetry has been knocked out
o1fSrn2 life on these immense farms.
Thoy.are fed we'll. They sleep in
barns or garncrs They are divid-
Il ingo gangs, as to the work they do
in ;Ino~fclds, and behind each gang a
fore,yfsn rides on horseback and
keeps thom at work. 1t is hard, con-
tinuoEy work. ;5elf-binding machines,
drawn. ~ three. strong horses, roll
around md around the wheat fields,
throwing with iron arm bound
bundle oE wheat every ten feet. Be-
hind the machines walk q line of
shockers. shocker to each machine.
These men have to walk as fast as the
horses and bend over and pick up a
heavy bundle Of wheat every ten feet
and carry it to shock. And above
them blaxes the fiery Dakota sun.
During threshing it is he same.
The steam thresher never tires. The
men who pitch bundles in the field
have each pitch to q certain number
OF wagons. The men who drive haye to
unload their wagons, The men who
iced the straw into the iron-toothed
mouth Of the machine have to feed all
thar is brought to them. On one
side of the machine The grain pours
out of Il spout, and is loaded directly
into wagons and hauled to the garner
There are just sufficient men to do
the work. For twelve hours every
day they work inillstriously. 1t is
not farming. It is the manufacture Of
wheat which is being carried on.
The products Of small farms cannot
comp etc with these so-called bonanza
farms any more successfully than the
output Of a village b]acksnith's shop
could complete with that from the
Novelty Iron works. in the com
ptitive age in which we live, when the
law OF the survival of the httcs1
(Which means III industrial pursuits
the cheapest producer) is III full OF.
Grafton, [ think that these great farms
which are managed as manufacturing
industries are, will be found to be
necessary to enable us to hold the
consuming markets Of the world
They are the outgrowth Of competi.
ton For 3 month in the spring
and forty days in the summer and
fall, the air hanging over the bonanza
farms resounds with the hum Of in
dustry, Then all is silent and the
country desolate until the next spring.
But wheat has been, produced cheaply
Where do the men who handle these
immense crops OF wheat come from?
That question cannot be answered
accurately. Casselton, when I first
saw it two weeks ago, WAS full of
dirty, idle men. Americans, Scan
dinaviansand Irishmen swarmed along
its main street. This crowd of ragged
dirty, half-drunken men we're
migratory harvest tramps who were
waiting to be hired. Where they
come from and were they go to is un-
known to man. AS harvest APP
proachcs they crawl out of freight
cars which stop at Casselton. They
aree seen walking along the dusty,
hot highways which lead to this town.
They arrive during the night. They
SLOUGH into town by day They are,
with the exception Of the Scand-
inavians, almost invariably dead broke
dirty and hungry. About eight hun
dred Of these migratory people arrive
at Casselton in time to assist in
harvest and threshing, which last
about forty days. They are paid 81
per day. So they earn about $50
each during the Dakota harvest
They mysteriously disappear. They
are agricultural tramps.